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The GOP to the poor: Starve

Republicans muscled a pared-back agriculture bill through the House on Thursday, stripping out the food stamp program to satisfy recalcitrant conservatives but losing what little Democratic support the bill had when it failed last month. It was the first time food stamps had not been a part of the farm bill since 1973. …

Representative Frank D. Lucas, Republican of Oklahoma, the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said he would try to draft a separate food stamp bill “as soon as I can achieve a consensus.” But conservatives remain determined to extract deep cuts to the program — cuts that members of both parties in the House and Senate have said they cannot support.

This means no food stamps until the Republicans get their act together. And that’s been impossible.

People are going hungry in America. The poverty rate is rising because the GOP is doing everything in its power to undermine every social program promoted by President Obama.

Republicans want you to believe that food stamps are being abused by minorities. But the vast majority of people on food stamps are white. And they aren’t in the big cities. They’re in rural America, places that are Republican strongholds.

Here, in the rural hills of Tennessee, is the latest fallout of a recession that officially ended in 2009 but remains without end for so many. More than 1 in 4 children now depend on government food assistance, a record level of need that has increased the federal budget and changed the nature of childhood for the nation’s poor.

You really have to read the full story (here) to fully understand the impact of today’s action by John Boehner and his minions. Poor people are going hungry. Things are getting worse. And the party that wants to give bigger tax cuts to the rich has just taken food out of the mouths of children.

Why this political party exists … why poor whites throughout America blindly follow the GOP when all it wants to do is destroy them … is beyond comprehension.

1 thought on “The GOP to the poor: Starve”

On September 21, 1959, P.L. 86-341 authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to operate a food-stamp system through January 31, 1962. The Eisenhower Administration never used the authority. However, in fulfillment of a campaign promise made in West Virginia , President John F. Kennedy ‘s first Executive Order called for expanded food distribution and, on February 2, 1961, he announced that food stamp pilot programs would be initiated. The pilot programs would retain the requirement that the food stamps be purchased, but eliminated the concept of special stamps for surplus foods. A Department spokesman indicated the emphasis would be on increasing the consumption of perishables.